Spring RTS Engine

6 Player: 16x16: Water map. I got a chance to use the terrain modifiers. The rock structure gives a bonus to vehicles kbots and hovers. The sand gives a negative bonus to vehicles, an even greater negative to kbots, and leaves the hovers unaffected. The sand is soft and quite deformable, while the rock is extremely hard. Metal is on the low side. Download http://fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1287

Well, as said in the Terrain Standards thread, it is likely that vehicles would do worse in the sandy terrain than kbots, as the vehicles have to slog through the sand, while the kbots are able to step over it. Think about (as someone said) the difference between walking on sand, and riding your bike/driving a car on sand. There is no traction.

The general thrust being that kbots are the all-terrain units, and are good for use off-road, where terrain conditions are against you, while vehicles are better in good conditions, because while kbot legs can only go as fast as their legs can carry them, vehicles can turn their motors, and be able to go much faster on even, stable terrain.

That and the more you alter kbot speeds, the more their walk animations will look strange.

Warlord Zsinj wrote:Well, as said in the Terrain Standards thread, it is likely that vehicles would do worse in the sandy terrain than kbots, as the vehicles have to slog through the sand, while the kbots are able to step over it. Think about (as someone said) the difference between walking on sand, and riding your bike/driving a car on sand. There is no traction.

The general thrust being that kbots are the all-terrain units, and are good for use off-road, where terrain conditions are against you, while vehicles are better in good conditions, because while kbot legs can only go as fast as their legs can carry them, vehicles can turn their motors, and be able to go much faster on even, stable terrain.

That and the more you alter kbot speeds, the more their walk animations will look strange.

I beg to differ. The only terrain kbots would be 'faster' on is rough terrain. Your point about sand is IMHO completely backwards. Wheeled or tracked vehicles will be distributing their weight much better, and the only problem would be accelerating, which is something that doesnt happen in Spring much. Frankly all units would slow down in rough terrain, and in hard flat terrain go faster. The fact that kbots can cross broken ground, doesn't mean they do it at 'top speed'.

One could even make an arguement that sand (near water) should give a huge speed bonus to vehicles. For over a century the land speed records have been set on 'beach.' Both sand (Ormond/Daytona Beach FL) and, obviously, 'salt' (Bonneville Salt Flats).

Walking things do very poorly on soft surfaces. Not knowing what part of the world you are from you can either think about trying to walk in deep snow or walking on the beach. I know that both hiking to the garage to get a shovel and walking a few hundred 'meters from the car park' (yards from the parking lot) carrying a cooler both cause me considerably more exertion then walking on the sidewalk

In a desert setting you've got a tough decision- its likely nothing can climb any significant grade and only hovercraft would make high speeds on the flats.

PS Have you ever seen those rediculous balloonish tired tricycle things they rent at the beach? They do at least as well on sand as a hard surface... Then again if you set the bar low enough, it isn't hard to meet it

It sure looks awesome. :)

That's just because he got a good computer with reflective water, shadow, and all. Me too if I had a super powerful PC I could make gorgeous screenshots.

His heightmap is all squarish, not even concrete has such pointy edges, and his wall texture is like a messy random noise.

But with smoother and better textured walls it would make a really good map. And pretty original, and with some nice twist on the gameplay.

Computer is 1.2ghz with 256meg Radeon 9600. Hardly top of the line. Too squarish for you? LoL And I tried a variety of textures, this one looked the best. And by the way I find it funny how you decided to jump on and nitpick after you saw that someone gave me a compliment

His heightmap is all squarish, not even concrete has such pointy edges

Isnt it supposed to be like that?

hrmph,

The map looks great and a nice layout too. Can't wait
to play others on-line with it... hrmph ... keep up the good
work.

Much thanks for the positive comments!

Mother, please see my response in the GD thread.

As for taking offense at zwzsg, I think he has probably given the most constructive comments of the thread. He has a lot to learn in terms of subtlety and diplomacy, but what he says is usually right.

I'm not offended.. :) and by the way I was thinking about that texture issue, and maybe it looks strange because the texture is so large... I will have to experiment a bit to see.

I think the map looks great, rather than looking like concrete, the walls look like they might have been carved from volcanic rock. Which I think is good, very unearthly, but definately made by someone. A place of great spiritual significance or some great work of art.

Look at this place on good old earth!

I like the map, but it would suck with XTA balance, because ships kind of suck in XTA. It would be a neat map for OTA, though. Well done.

Weaver wrote:

Yo has that place been built yet? i thought that was a concept image
Man if i had the money i would so buy one of those islands man made in a hot sunny place and then BAM delcair indipendance.

Weaver wrote:I think the map looks great, rather than looking like concrete, the walls look like they might have been carved from volcanic rock. Which I think is good, very unearthly, but definately made by someone. A place of great spiritual significance or some great work of art.

Look at this place on good old earth!

It's strange, it look like the earth...

isn't it that cool imatation earth with islands available at obscene prices i want one for my birthday :D

Min3mat wrote:isn't it that cool imatation earth with islands available at obscene prices i want one for my birthday :D

Yup thats the one in the united arab emirates isn't it but i didn't know it had been built yet :S

I found a slight problem with that map:

Because we cant rotate buildings, players starting at the 2 respectivly 8 o'clock position have a disadvantage (because of the way factories block those diagonal spaces, and one cant fill them nicely with solars/ect like the horizontal/vertical corridors all other starting positions possess.

(it wouldnt matter if the map was bigger, but right now, those players get about 20-30% less base-space because of the unusable corners

Hopefully rotating buildings will be included sometime in the future.